For B2B tech companies, identifying a total addressable market — and opportunities to expand beyond your current market — is a key factor in growing your company plus attracting investment.
A new report from McKinsey on technology trends ranks 14 advanced technologies for relevance across 20 industries, from aerospace to telecommunications. Here’s how those technologies rank by the number of industries in which they’re “highly relevant”:
- Applied A. I.: 20 sectors
- Future of sustainable consumption: 16
- Advanced connectivity: 12
- Trust architectures and digital identity: 11
- Cloud and edge computing: 10
- Immersive-reality technologies: 9
- Future of mobility: 9
- Industrializing machine learning: 7
- Potential of clean energy: 6
- Quantum technologies: six
- Future of bioengineering: 4
- Web3: 3
- Next-generation software development: 2
- Future associated with space systems: 2
The report is useful for any entrepreneur building B2B products because it shows overlap and connections between industries you may not have considered as potential customers. If you’re only selling to one or two industries, you might ask whether your product could easily translate into another. As the authors write, “While it remains difficult to predict exactly how technology trends will play out, executives can plan ahead better by tracking the development of new technologies, anticipating how companies might use them, plus understanding the particular factors that affect innovation and adoption. ”
The technology most relevant throughout all 20 sectors? Used A. We. , by which, as the report explains, “Models trained in device learning can be used to solve classification, prediction, and control problems to automate activities, add or augment capabilities plus offerings, and make much better decisions. ”
This speaks to a familiar theme with regard to entrepreneurs: In almost every industry, in almost every company, there is likely some problem that will can be solved through upgraded analytics, automation, or some other application of A. I. While individual The. I. products are, by nature, narrowly focused, an insight here for entrepreneurs is that different industries might have similar problems to 1 you’re solving in your target market.
The second most broadly relevant tech, according in order to McKinsey’s analysts, is the “future of sustainable consumption. inch Which, as the statement defines, “involves transforming industrial and individual consumption via technology to address environmental risks, including climate change. inches Entrepreneurs in this space might be surprised to find the full range of industrial sectors interested in their technology.
As environmental efforts advance, we continue to see changes in linking society’s communications. Third-most relevant inside McKinsey’s list is “advanced connectivity, ” which McKinsey describes because, “5G/6G cellular, wireless low-power networks, low-Earth-orbit satellites, plus other technology support a host of digital solutions that can drive growth and productivity across industries. ” Here again, entrepreneurs may find sectors they hadn’t considered are among their own best potential customers.
While reports like this are often meant to serve the large companies typical of McKinsey’s client base, business owners can make use of this in thinking about the way items are brought to market. Many products begin as a solution to a very specific pain point. Identifying that is a research-oriented process. Founders are expected to go by means of a customer discovery process, in which they interview prospective customers to help identify what their product should become in the march to building a minimum viable item, or MVP.
But even as your product is gaining traction in a single field, a person can keep exploring others — continuing that customer discovery process outside of your immediate target market in order to identify additional markets. For example , you may be targeting retail stores with your product, and then find that banks have a similar discomfort point. Or you may be solving a problem in manufacturing that’s quite similar inside agriculture. A tool meant to help teachers might also assist leaders associated with software engineering teams. With some quick adaptations, you might be able to bring your own technology to a much larger market.
Think of the way a large-company CEO views this record: There are usually 14 technologies trends listed as relevant to twenty industries, and the CEO, being in one of those industrial sectors, looks and sees that a given technology trend is highly relevant in order to her business. She turns to her executive team plus asks, “What is our strategy for this particular technology trend? ”
As a founder, your company is on the other side of that, because you’re likely focused on a single product or service; you might become one of those 14 technology styles. You have the particular opportunity to look at this report from the opposite direction and ask: What industries may we focus on with our own trending technologies?
It’s another way in order to think about whether your item has a wider application.